Tag Archives: Dane DeHaan

LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

I have learned more about the tulip craze in 17th Century Amsterdam than I ever care to hear about ever again thanks to “Tulip Fever,” a lifeless, insipid mess of a movie. Alicia Vikander and Christoph Waltz may headline this ill-advised project and while they are proficient, their performances aren’t enough to recommend suffering through this mess.

The film is based on the novel by Deborah Moggach and as is usually the case with intricate books turned into movies, there are just far too many storylines competing for attention within the entrapments of a 90 minute run time. It’s such a convoluted jumble of confusion that at times the plot doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, and it doesn’t help that almost all of the characters feel paper thin.

Vikander is adept as Sophia, an orphaned girl who is forced into an arranged marriage to a wealthy merchant (Waltz). Unhappy in her emotional prison and unable to conceive an heir for her husband, she finds a confidant in her housemaid Maria (Holliday Grainger). When the lady of the house starts to have a passionate affair with a portrait painter (Dane DeHaan), all hell breaks loose.

There are way too many subplots that throw far too much information at the viewer, from an inept attempt to explain the underground tulip bulb market that ran rampant in the early 1600s, an unconvincing romance storyline with the local fishmonger (Jack O’Connell), scenes of a humorless nun (Judi Dench) tending to her flower garden, a drunk screw-up (Zach Galifianakis) ruining an epic plan after he intervenes to stop someone from beating a donkey, and a slightly pervy underground wannabe gynecologist.

Perhaps if this film had been crafted as a screwball comedy it would’ve been more effective.

The truly unsexy sex scenes notwithstanding, the filmmaking is at least skilled, and plot-wise there’s just enough to keep audiences barely hanging on to discover where the story ultimately goes. “Tulip Fever” is thankfully interspersed with some gorgeous shots of the most lovely flowers and the lavish costume design is an additional feast for the eyes. The movie isn’t bad to look at it, it’s just dull, hollow and ultimately confusing.

LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

It’s long been claimed that George Lucas famously “borrowed” (read: “stole”) many of the ideas that were originally presented in the decades-old French comic book series “Valérian and Laureline,” written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières. When watching the new Luc Besson directed film based on those comics, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” you’ll definitely notice many parallels with the “Star Wars” films. But remember: the Frenchmen did it first.

Fans of Besson will be giddy with excitement because the film feels like he was able to let it all hang out, creatively speaking. It’s weird, it’s boisterous, it’s intoxicating, and it’s a wildly imaginative take from a man who has a noticeable, over-the-top adoration for the genre. I cannot imagine anyone else in the director’s seat for this outrageously exaggerated (if sometimes flawed) visual spectacle.

Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are agents charged with maintaining order throughout the galaxy. The film puts them in all sorts of wild adventures and predicaments (where it does briefly overstay its welcome with a too long two hours plus run time), but the story never lags until its final 15 minutes and even then, it’s still entertaining as all get-out. While it’s true that the performances aren’t great (although I did very much enjoy Ethan Hawke‘s brief cameo as a space pimp), it truly doesn’t matter: the awesome visual effects are the real superstar of this film.

Calling the effects incredible or flawless isn’t doing them any justice. The set pieces are truly beyond imagination, filled with a colorful and visionary innovation that is a real feast for the eyes. From the stunning space age costumes to the breathtaking sequences (including one particular gorgeously unforgettable bit in an alternate dimension marketplace), this is thrilling eye candy in the greatest sense. This is yet another substantial entry into this summer’s roll call of innovative films with impeccable special effects.

There’s a lot of hate for this movie and yes, the plot could be more focused and the performances can come across as quite lackluster at times, but I think some critics are simply being far too harsh, especially when it comes to Besson’s lead casting choices. It’s interesting because DeHaan and Delevingne are two extremely unlikable and unappealing actors, yet when paired together something magical happens. You may hate them apart but you’ll love them together.

There’s this detached, aloof chemistry that works tenfold and, despite the squawking chorus of thousands of fanboy critics who will vehemently disagree, I find this film to be perfectly cast. No, DeHaan isn’t a larger than life sci-fi hero, but it’s his understated presence that allows him to willingly sit in the passenger seat while the visual spectacle outshines just about everything else in the film.

No doubt “Valerian” won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re into the sheer beauty and artistry of movies or energetic, rousing sci-fi, you may just love it as much as I did.

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LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

It’s rare that a film leaves me as puzzled as “A Cure for Wellness” managed to do. This bizarre exercise from director Gore Verbinski it not an easy movie to watch, proving quite challenging even for a seasoned viewer like me. This film is destined to inspire dozens of walkouts not only as a result of the overall uncomfortably menacing tone but the actual graphic onscreen depictions of incest, rape, animal cruelty, infants preserved in jars of formaldehyde, and one of the most horrific dental drilling torture scene since “Marathon Man.”

There’s plenty of violence, plenty of distressing deplorable behavior, and plenty of metaphorical eels. Lots and lots of eels.

When the CEO of an important New York financial firm refuses to return from a secluded, mysterious wellness center in the Swiss Alps, young executive Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is sent to bring him back. He soon finds himself trapped, being forced into the spa’s miracle water treatments by creepy Doctor Volmer (Jason Isaacs). Of course things aren’t always what they seem, and the terrifying secrets and revelations surrounding an eerie young woman (Mia Goth) soon start to make Lockhart question his own sanity.

Verbinski has a wonderful artistic eye, and this film is visually stunning and distinctly elegant in its unsettling disturbing-ness. The first half hour is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, both visually poetic as well as gracefully written. You’ll be hooked on the mystery early on; it’s the eventual reveal that’s such a major letdown.

This overly long (146 minutes) film is right past the tipping point for all but the most tolerant of viewers, a psychological thriller that is stuffed with so much surrealism and dreamy, grotesque fetish horror that it’s not a freak show you’ll soon forget. This movie is so stylish and so disturbing that it will haunt me for years. It defies classification (but the best descriptor I can muster is that it’s a mash-up of “Shutter Island” and “The Neon Demon”).

It’s an arty freak show in the grandest of the schlock tradition, a horrific horror film that’s also elegantly horrific.